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chrisp65

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Everything posted by chrisp65

  1. Hhmmm, I went to my local record shop this lunchtime, admittedly it was lunchtime on a Friday, it's a payday sort of time of the month and it's half term and all that. But the place was rammed. Elbow etiquette came in to play. I've been going there for I guess about 35 years and it's almost always been a very small number of people and the same staff year in year out. Couldn't chat about crap this lunchtime though, or get mugged in to buying something they couldn't shift. Too busy serving punters and showing new staff where everything was. Which is great. I guess. Hopefully the crowds will thin a little bit when the fashion moves on or they discover Olly Murs Greatest Hits is actually cheaper in Sainsbury's. But in that a couple of years ago they were seriously looking like packing it up and calling it a day, it's good to see them quite literally with a queue at the till. Even the local second hand record shop is making hay. They have a bunch of quite rough looking 2Tone and mod stuff on the racks at the moment. Dog eared copies of The Beat or The Jam albums being knocked out for £20 a go, and not exactly VG+ condition either. Anecdotally, in my nippers comprehensive class, about 10 of them claim to have record players, 2 of them now take in cassette playing boom boxes! I know that on e-bay, turntables that were always £30 or £40 a year back are now regularly selling at £200. Good luck to 'em all, if it inspires somebody somewhere to pick up a guitar and knock out the next 'Teenage Kicks'.
  2. I strayed away from the one we were both on. I just couldn't get in to the swing of it. But then I found a nice friendly bunch of middle aged chaps from all over europe and beyond that will happily spend endless hours of their time explaining to a clueless chap like me how to build your own bespoke turntable from scratch, and the geometry of where the arm goes and what an ohm is and all that... (wish I hadn't mentioned train spotters now).
  3. exactly! you either know where it is, or you make new discoveries this baby will now be filed with other basically white albums, such as Mwng, Music Complete and Roaring Lion perhaps if you file by alphabetisation and chronology you've also got a thing for trains played / not played / colour of sleeve there is a beauty in the simplicity, even if I say so myself oh, they're filed 'face on' too, their natural state like when you pick them up from the shop, none of this 'side on gets more in' shennanagins
  4. Music filing. Now there's a whole subject I've upset some people on another forum with. My filing for 12" vinyl is basically two sections. Active and non active. Non-active are stored remotely in a random order I can visualise so I know where stuff is. Active has a chance of being played so is in the same room as the turntable. I know exactly where every album is, though they are currently filed by sleeve colour. Right now, it's the lunchtime of the Friday after pay day.....
  5. @Stevo985 The Pina Colada song. Case. Closed. @Designer1 Now that's interesting, he was in This Is England. That was also something I enjoyed, but I'll confess I'm no film buff and would struggle to retain an actors name to look up in other stuff. But yes, based on those two showings, I'll seek out '71. cheers.
  6. Based on no research whatsoever, just my own prejudices, I'd guess that the most english language books by genre are probably: 1 Sci Fi / fantasy / harry potteresque / vampire space magician type pap 2 Middle aged women's novels about womens love and heartache stuff, be it historical romance or written versions of The Archers 3 Cookery and craft and weight loss lifestyle shite 4 Pictures of tanks / tractors / james bond cars / hitler / motorbikes (based on one visit to The Works) I'd guess the pope might not make the top 10, and rightly so.
  7. Paint brush is wet, and loaded with frothy white emulsion. I think you can see the shelf is still a little wet, there's a hint of sheen. The wall is wet. CD cases aren't high on my list of precious possessions. In fact, it's quite rare it's a CD in a case. Most cases end up in a cupboard with the CD's themselves kept nice n portable in those 50 pocket zip up pouches you can get. The mug is a mug, you can scratch emulsion of that. Drinking a little emulsion never did anyone any harm. The shelf is in the garage / fitness studio / den. Shortly after this, I walked down the garden and through the house - with my shoes on. We have a new carpet 'runner' down the parquet in the hall as of today. Apparently we will now be a shoes off sort of house.
  8. My kids have a copy of the 'mixtape' from Guardians of the Galaxy in my car. Other than the track 'cherry bomb' it's truly grim. On a lighter note, I watched the film 'Starred Up' on film 4 last night. An excellent piece of work. Looked to be quite a realistic portrayal of life inside prison for some people. It hinted at what life people have had outside that puts them inside. But it's not preachy or clever. A cast completely unknown to me, but then I don't get out much. The actor that played the father character, Neville Love, was exceptional. Acted with every muscle in his body, a man mentally and physically tied up in knots. It put me a little bit in mind of Tyrannosaur, not instantly obviously similar stories, but similar atmosphere.
  9. There's got to be a huge chunk of a nugget of truth in that about the translation of books. But I wouldn't mind betting you can chip away at a lot of the shock value of the vastness of the statistic. I'd imagine that there weren't that many non-arabic books worthy of translation in the 9th century? I'd imagine the same would go for quite a few other centuries. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there was more sci fi porn fan fiction self published since 2000 than the total number of books on earth in the 9th, 10th, 11th 12th 13th centuries combined. Just a guess, but I bet I'm pretty close to being right. Arabs only being responsible for producing 1% of the world books. Well, yeah, could be true. But then arabs only represent 4% or 5% of the world population. Quite a few of them in Libya and Egypt, Syria, Iraq etc., have been quite preoccupied lately, which could explain a poor showing in the world of romantic fiction as well as business books. I'd wonder how many 'arab' doctors and surgeons have migrated to other areas and had a hand in publishing research papers written in english or german or spanish? I'd imagine there are remarkably few science papers written in Albanian, a european language, but a poor country. Somebody with something interesting to say there might well have bunked off to Italy or Greece or Turkey? Spain as a massive book translation hub? Well, that would make sense. There is a huge Spanish speaking population on earth, about half a billion native speakers? Something like that. A few hundred million more than have arabic as their first language anyway. Then I guess you've got the over representation of rich populations with leisure time to spare and a ready market to buy their books. I'd hazard a guess that the english speaking world is head and shoulders above much of the rest of the world for producing 'books'. How much of it is pulp is probably a matter of opinion, but go and stand in Waterstones and consider how much poorer your life would be if 80% of those books didn't exist. All those self help books. All those business strategy books. All those cathartic autobiographies by people that had a bad childhood. Books of pictures of mountains. The Labdybird book of boyfriends. Mostly shite, would be the likely answer. But yes. Probably a very good nugget of truth in there. Saudi Arabia appears to be a bit of a giant thinking and ideas black hole. China would be another one worth studying. They probably churn out a good few books, they'll have quantity. But it will all be state approved. Where's the value in that?
  10. Zaha Hadid just 65 and just getting in to her stride
  11. It is common for a vast multi national conglomerate to gauge it's business strategy on the political mood music of the countries it operates in. The UK government has paid lip service to doing something about something at some point in the future. Then voted not to impose greater tariffs on state subsidised chinese steel. The Business Secretary went on holiday (and admittedly gave a power point presentation). What mood music would that give you, if you were considering whether or not to continue losing a million pound a week? You'll remember that Question Time about a month ago when people asked / warned the then Wales Secretary Stephen Crabb about Port Talbot and he turned and shrugged and said he wasn't that 'up' on it all. How does that **** help? Weird thing is, when the budget announced £3 off Severn Bridge tolls they already had a smiling photo opportunity lined up for it. Wasn't too **** busy or uninterested that day. I'm not suggesting a blank cheque for any industry. Just the appearance of giving a **** and an explanation as to why The Royal Bank of Scotland is more important than the UK's ability to produce it's own steel. But yeah, you know, what can you do? I guess having friends in Port Talbot is causing me not to think straight about what's for the best. They should all move to Basingstoke and sell insurance to each other.
  12. Lord forbid we bail out steel. Another £15 billion on top of the £500 billion given to bankers could ruin us. Temporary nationalisation in a crisis is obviously utterly beyond modern political thinking and EU law. They'll still be wanting a Christmas bonus next, the greedy bastards.
  13. I'm not sure what your point is there? It wasn't a surprise party, there was advanced notice. Are you saying he didn't know days in advance there was going to be a meeting in India? Or are you saying he didn't feel he could attend, but nobody else could stand in for him, so they just cried off? Or that it simply wasn't important? I knew a week in advance there was a crunch meeting at Tata. But then, I do have the latest gadget in advanced communication technology to give me that edge. Or as I like to call it, a television.
  14. Yes, we produce something like 1.5% of what China produces. But we aren't looking to beat them. We're looking to preserve an industry that might just be part of our nation's ability to sustain itself. How's the car industry going to look when in 5 years time China announces it's back in super expansion mode and we can't have any more steel because they need it? But then, Chinese cars will be cheaper anyway, so we should just buy them. Do we really want to close the British steel industry and be reliant on China sending us some at a fair price? Whilst we're at it, perhaps we can rely on our energy to come from China and Russia? I don't understand how it's important to spend billions upon billions on defence in the form of Trident replacement nuclear weapons. But steel and energy aren't considered part of the nation's defence plans? That can go to China, Russia and the middle east? Weird weird strategy.
  15. There is so much double dealing and deliberate confusion in this Tata Steel thing, clearly the thousands of jobs are nowhere near priority 1, 2 or 3 in this farce. Tories on TV last night saying we can't help by imposing different duties as it was blocked at EU level and that's why we need out of the EU. Neglected to say it was the UK as part of the EU that voted not to impose greater import duties. Disgusting politics. No UK government minister in the delegation sent to India to plead the case for UK steel. Meanwhile the Business Secretary does try and jet off to Australia for some vague business speech he was giving about, er, trade. torygraph Thousands upon thousands of jobs and the bulk of the UK steel industry in the balance and the Business Secretary is planning a trade trip / holiday to Australia. Again, disgusting. But then, you'd also have to ask why the local council planners in Port Talbot rejected two planning applications to put a renewables / bio fuel power station on the steel site. The plant would have given instant access to power, with price certainty. Rejected. It didn't fit with the local council's 'future tourism plans'. Hopefully the last batch of steel can be turned into commemorative edition bikes and they can all cycle up the M4 to Reading and get jobs in I.T. or telesales. Although, being realistic, it would probably be easier to just get chinese bikes. They're shit, but in the short term the government can get a private middle man to lease them to the benefits sucking scum much cheaper. Who knows, we might even be able to persuade the Chinese to just import bike bits so we can put them together in a shiny factory made out of chinese steel and give the chinese cash incentives to employ ex steel workers to screw the bits together. If we really put our business brains in to this, there must be a way of getting G4S in on the deal? Perhaps they can employ a few ex steelworkers to keep an eye on the other ex steelworkers to make sure nobody is stealing the little bells brought in from china via the amazon warehouse.
  16. just don't shake his hand - stole your joke to rob your likes
  17. could I just get a selfie here....
  18. I was feeling irritable. The figure quoted was wrong, 40% of all prisoners are not muslim. That's not true and it can be easily proven it's not true. But it's a 'fact' I've seen and heard many people using and there is a risk it is becoming accepted as true. Somebody somewhere is pushing it, peddling it, spreading it. I guess it's been on facebook or something and people are just happy to pass it on.
  19. @dAVe80 yeah, that's a good 40 minutes, enjoyed that. cheers.
  20. What does 'no doubt it's our fault' even mean? As for 100% of suicide bombers being muslim, try to do some really basic google research first before embarrassing yourself. It's more like 99%. The current campaign of terror is indeed using islam as it's 'thing'. But the first suicide bombings? Russians. From as early as the 1800's. They lost a Tsar that way. Let's ignore suicide missions by Germans and Japs in the second world war. But yes, currently, well spotted, mostly muslamic. You do yourself a dis service, presuming I've stuck my head in the sand. I was answering the point about the publicity various attacks get, and whether coverage is based on geography or race etc.. Coverage is based on media outrage and fear. A single terrorist death is more newsworthy than 40 or 50 road traffic deaths. It must be, they get the coverage. But do they get the coverage because there are pictures to go with the story. We can't sit and watch a newsreader any longer, we need pictures. New pictures every 20 minute update. I wasn't apologising for terrorists, they can all die a long and painful death out of my sight where nobody cares as far as I'm concerned. I was commenting on news coverage and I was commenting on perceived risk. I appreciate that might be complicated. Don't push your agenda about prisoners on to me, thanks. There's a decent point to be made about prisons. But again, do some basic research. There are over 84,000 people in UK prisons at present. less than 13,000 of them identify as muslim. It's a big and disproportionate number, but it ain't 40%, it's not even 20%, it's about 15%. Too high. Now, relax a bit, and I won't suggest where you can stick your head.
  21. They've just made an interesting point on Radio 4, springing from some mindless fascist speech Trump has made. He's stated in his usual garbled confused divisive way that it's 'dangerous' to visit europe. That it's dangerous for americans to visit Paris or Brussels or elsewhere in europe. They then crunched some stats on 'danger' for americans and 'danger' for tourists. Easily the most dangerous place to go, if you're a tourist, is somewhere where you could be tempted to get boozed up and then either go for a swim or hire a motor scooter. Thailand was singled out as being particularly dangerous, Greece got an honourable mention. There was some stat I didn't quite catch that there is more chance of an american being shot dead by their own toddler than killed by a bomb as a tourist. That the road death rate is four times greater in the USA than in the UK, and then there's the obvious guncrime stuff in the USA. Statistically, if you discount Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria, somebody is killed by a terrorist every 15 minutes.But somebosy is killed in a road traffic accident every 25 seconds. So you could ask, why are we so obsessed with giving publicity to publicity seeking murderers, when so many many more people are dying on the roads? The same effort, publicity and money expended on road safety as expended blowing up Afghan huts, would preserve so much more life. Much greater value, but obviously, less sexy.
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